The Hidden Connection Between CX and Revenue in Telecom

Customer experience is critically important in the telecom industry, which has many entrants offering a standardized product (voice, text, and data). Now, there’s firm evidence that better CX in telco leads to higher sales.

Per analyst firm Forrester’s “Drive Revenue With Great Customer Experience 2017” report, telecom has the 3rd-most potential for increasing revenue by doubling down on CX.

Only the auto industry and upscale hotels have higher revenue potential than telcos, Forrester says.

This is only an estimate. Still, it dovetails with our own analysis of digital CX in the telecom industry, which found that mature telco communities—those at least 2 years old—generate a per-customer return of $2.

Enhanced support

In our experience, telecom communities typically add value through enhanced support. Because telecom providers typically have millions of customers, there’s a lot of potential in solutions like inSided that let them offer better support more scalably.

Forrester comes to the same conclusion:

"Even though the per-customer revenue potential of CX is moderate, the big players each have tens of millions of customers... They should improve the worst experiences instead of refining good experiences. This should be a great incentive for most large wireless service providers, which each have about a third of their customers who say they have very poor experiences."

Forrester’s comment speaks to another important point about CX: it’s something that many companies struggle with. That’s why investing in CX improvements is such a compelling opportunity—it’s a way to durably build competitive advantage.

Better CX is especially valuable in consumer telco, which is highly competitive. Yet there are lessons here for other industries, as well.

After all, today’s consumers are spoiled for choice, whether they’re looking to buy a TV, toothpaste, or a data plan.

In this environment, delivering a great end-to-end shopping experience may be what sets brands apart. The challenge is knowing your customer well enough to identify what they truly want.

Online communities

Part of the reason online communities enhance CX is that they meet consumers’ demands for easy self-service support options. According to Microsoft’s “2015 Global State of Multichannel Customer Service Report,” 90% of consumers now expect brands to offer online self-service tools. Communities are an ideal solution: They serve as a knowledge base for people who want to browse for answers, while enabling others to actively ask (and answer) questions.

Couple community self-service with other CX improvements, like a rewards program, and you’ll see customers stay longer, spend more, and recommend you more frequently to their friends and family.